Greek Crisis Crushes Stock Futures

Shortly after futures opened at 6:00 pm ET, S&P 500 futures were down 1.7%, or 37 points, to around 2,060.

FinViz

Dow futures were off 298 points, or around 1.7%, while Nasdaq futures were also off 1.7%, or around 79 points.

FinViz

Stocks were following the lead of the euro, which was dropping hard against the dollar, falling 1.7% to below $1.10 while losing more than 2% against the Japanese yen and falling to its lowest level against the British pound since 2007.

The drop in stocks comes after a wild weekend of headlines out of Greece that saw talks between Greece and its creditors break down, Greece call a referendum vote on the latest bailout terms for next Sunday, while Greek banks and the Athens stock exchange have been closed for at least the next week.

Eurozone finance ministers blamed Greece for breaking off the talks, and the European Commission took the unusual step on Sunday of publishing proposals by European creditors that it said were on the table at the time.

But Greece described creditors’ terms as “not viable”, and asked for an extension of its current deal until after the vote was completed.

“[Rejection] of the Greek government’s request for a short extension of the programme was an unprecedented act by European standards, questioning the right of a sovereign people to decide,” Mr Tsipras on Sunday said in a televised address.

“This decision led the ECB today to limit the liquidity available to Greek banks and forced the Greek central bank to suggest a bank holiday and restrictions on bank withdrawals.”